Roses
by Senile-felineS
Summary: Challenge number two: to write a dream scene. AU, instead of staying with Michael, Jae left with Ken. But every night she returns to the manor. She can never escape the call of her heart. I don't think you need to be familiar with the cannon to understand this story.


Roses

**A/N: This is the second challenge, to write a convincing dream scene. I don't know if I did it write, so please leave constructive criticism so that I can get better. This was actually one of the first fanfic ideas I ever got (well over a year ago) and I wrote it out several months ago, but I was focusing on another story and I forgot about this on until now. But here it is, enjoy. You can read it without knowing the cannon, but if you are familiar with it this story is alternate universe and Jae left with Ken rather that staying with Michael.**

I closed my eyes for just a moment and I was standing in a corridor (always the same one, always the same doors). Flanked on ether side by old stone walls (dust and damp) and full of pretty things on small tables.

It was light (why?), no windows no candles but so bright that it was close to blinding. The brightness didn't belong to this place, didn't fit. Even in the day this was a place of shade and shadow; and of secrets.

A breeze blew past me (inside?) fluttering escape artist hair against my face and my neck and carrying with it a trace of a scent that I would never (you could never) forget. The scent of roses (roses belong to the night).

A soft laugh hit my ears (deep and dark and rich), holding in it the promise of a thousand indiscretions. I looked up in time to see the last disappearing hint of a silhouette which had been cast of the floor as carelessly as one might drop a robe. I scrambled after (wait, hold on, I can't keep up).

I was always like this, I spent every night hurrying through nearly indistinguishable halls and rooms following after the edge of a hem, a flick of hair, the jangle of a chain or the click of a quietly closed door.

It was maddening and it made me feel weak and desperate to be always chasing and never catching (you'll never get there you'll never get there), every night (night, but it's so bright why is it so...). I used to dream of escape (must get away) and freedom. But it had gotten to me (you let it you will never escape the call of your heart). This place had invaded my thought and my life and now I spent my dreams chasing after something that I knew I could never have truly had.

I stopped dead and again the laugh folded around me, caressing my flesh and making my heart quiver (keep up you're almost there aren't you coming to get me). No! This needed to stop, I had to get out of here.

* * *

With a start I jerked forwards, fully awake as soon as I opened my eyes. The weight of the arm restraining me tightened unconsciously; as if aware, even in sleep, that I was agitated. The light of the clock beside me told me that it was just past 3am.

I turned onto my side and sank my head back into the pillow. Ken's sleeping face was so different from his waking one, despite the dreaming twitch he looked peaceful, more like the child he must once have been, rather than the man he had become.

I raised my hand to stroke his cheek tenderly, then left it resting there. In the moonlight that slipped through the blinds, our skin was bleached bone white. Just touching him, even in such a chaste way, helped to steady me and slow my heart to its natural rhythm.

Despite what he was, he was also my safe-guard against the dangerous all-consuming passion of Michael. My rock in the storm. He was the choice I had made, the lesser of two evils.

But despite everything between us, I would never tell him my dreams, instead inventing lies when he asked me what it was that kept me up. The knowledge would break him. The knowledge that every night I dreamed of chasing, dreamed of Michael, dreamed of roses.

**A/N: I know it was short, but I didn't want to make it longer and risk losing any pertinence it might have. If you didn't understand anything, review with questions and I will try to answer them.**


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